Peach Shortbread

'Tis peach season. Is there anything better than a ripe peach, so fragrant and juicy that you have to eat it over the kitchen sink?

I purchased a 10 litre basket of peaches to make jars of jam. Fortunately, I had leftover peaches: some were eaten as is, others stirred into yoghurt, and I even made a peach caprese salad.

As I'm often inspired to make dessert with in-season fruits (I made a killer strawberry ice cream last month), I started searching and came across this peach shortbread recipe.

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Classic Strawberry Preserves

My first foray into canning began many summers ago. I used to make huge batches of applesauce to freeze but received complaints that I was hogging up the limited space in the freezer.

The initial research into canning was overwhelming: so many equipments to use! The fear of botulism if everything is not heated and sealed properly!

Most of the recipes I encountered used large quantities of sugar (i.e. a 1:1 cup ratio of fruit to sugar), which, no thank you. I want to be able to distinguish the fruits that I'm preserving rather than eating spoonfuls of sugar.

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Indian Rice Pudding (Kheer/Payasam)

I'm a latecomer to rice pudding but have been making up for lost time. Real talk: I have purchased Costco-amounts of Kozy Shack rice pudding for myself (and only myself) to consume. I like to stir in some cinnamon and cardamon before digging in.

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Black Sesame Ice Cream

This was my first attempt at homemade ice cream and it was easier than I thought it would be. Not sure how good this will be for my waistline though.

I'm kind of obsessed with black sesame and am often disappointed at the lack of flavour in black sesame desserts, purchased or otherwise, but this hit the mark. I might even amp up the black sesame paste next time to really let the nuttiness shine through.

Jam Hand Pies

Hand pies are for crust lovers. If you enjoy the flaky, buttery crust of a pie more than the filling, then hand pies are for you.

They're also conveniently portable. Have you tried lugging a pie dish on public transportation, dodging people on the sidewalk so you can bring a pie to work to share with co-workers? It's not fun. Hand pies can easily fit into a container and thrown into a bag without worrying about spillage.

And if you're into the cute factor, they're tiny and bite-sized.

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